The increased reliance on content in digital data form has led to a need for detailed information about the content in digital data as well as techniques for managing and controlling this detailed information. This detailed information is often referred to as “metadata” and is also a form of digital data. For example, there is a high demand for audio data, and accordingly, there is a high demand for metadata about the audio data such as, for example, the artist or speaker name, album name, genre, and number of songs.
While access to metadata provides the public with a vast amount of information, it is often difficult to manage the metadata. For example, keeping track of various audio files as well as the immense amount of metadata for each audio file can be a cumbersome task.
Additionally, conventional approaches fail to account for different types of metadata for different types of data. For example, the metadata associated with video files may include similar fields as those in audio files, such as for example, the file length and file name; however, the metadata associated with video files may also include fields different from those of audio files, such as, for example, image format and main characters. In addition, one type of data may be associated with a variety of different types of metadata. For example, the metadata associated with an audio file from the classical genre may include both similar and different fields from an audio file from the R&B genre. The audio file from the classical genre may include standard fields, such as, for example, song title, song length, and album name, and may also include additional fields, such as, for example, conductor name, and orchestra name that would not be used for audio files from the R&B genre.
Conventional approaches also fail to adequately manage the unlimited amount of metadata that may be related to a data file. For example, one user may have one hundred fields of metadata for his audio files and may want to add an additional five custom fields in which he provides additional information about the audio files. Another user may have seven fields of metadata for his audio files including one custom field of metadata.
Further, conventional approaches do not allow the user to easily view, access, and edit the varying types of metadata for various types of data. It is difficult to provide a variety of users with the ability to manage their own sets of metadata that may include the standard metadata fields as well as an unlimited number of custom metadata fields.